Former Vice President Al Gore says the newly-formed Larsen C iceberg is “a jarring reminder of why we must solve the climate crisis,” although scientists say the ice sheet break up was driven by natural processes.
Gore, on the other hand, stuck to his playbook of tying nearly every weather or ice event to man-made global warming.
The Larsen C ice shelf has broken away from Antarctica, a jarring reminder of why we must solve the climate crisis. https://t.co/3ddOminhX3
— Al Gore (@algore) July 12, 2017
A Delaware-sized iceberg broke away from the Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf sometime between Monday and Wednesday. Scientists tracking the ice rift said they were “not aware of any link to human-induced climate change” in the Larsen C ice shelf’s breakup.
Scientists expect the Larsen ice sheet to continue to grow in the future. MIDAS project researchers did say the calving left “the landscape of the Antarctic Peninsula changed forever” and new ice added to the sheet could be “potentially less stable than it was prior to the rift.”
“Although the remaining ice shelf will continue naturally to regrow, Swansea researchers have previously shown that the new configuration is potentially less stable than it was prior to the rift,” according to the MIDAS project.
Gore also incorrectly stated the whole Larsen C ice shelf had broken away. In reality, the iceberg breaking off only reduced the size of the ice sheet by about 12 percent, according to the MIDAS project.
The iceberg that broke away was more than 2,200 square miles — about the size of Delaware. That’s only a fraction of the Larsen C ice shelf’s 17,100-square-mile total area.
MIDAS scientists started monitoring a crack in the Larsen C ice shelf in 2014. The crack grew rapidly in the past year, finally breaking away sometime in the past three days. It’s not expected to immediately add to global sea level rise.
Scientists are sure what will happen to the rest of the ice sheet, but there are concerns “Larsen C may eventually follow the example of its neighbour, Larsen B, which disintegrated in 2002 following a similar rift-induced calving event in 1995,” according to MIDAS.
Follow Michael on Facebook and Twitter
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
